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Mortality and burden of disease from water and sanitation

Situation and trends

Burden of diarrhoeal diseases related to WSH

In the year 2012, water, sanitation and hygiene was responsible for 842 000 annual deaths from diarrhoea, and 1.5% of the global burden of disease (in Disability-Adjusted Life Years or DALYs). This makes this risk factor an important environmental contributor to ill health. Most diarrhoeal deaths in the world are caused by unsafe water, sanitation or hygiene.

Extended burden of disease estimates related to WSH

All together, improvements related to drinking-water, sanitation, hygiene, and water resource management could result in the reduction of almost 10% of the total burden of disease worldwide.

In addition to diarrhoea, an important share of the following diseases could be prevented if adequate water quality and quantity, sanitation facilities, hygiene behaviour, as well as water resource management interventions were implemented:

Malnutrition

Intestinal nematode infections

Lymphatic filariasis

Trachoma

Schistosomiasis

Malaria

Other infectious diseases

Deaths and DALYs estimates attributable to WSH, by country and by region, 2004xls, 466kbTheses disease burden estimates are based on a combination of comparative risk assessment methods, evidence synthesis and expert estimates. The scientific rigor of the estimates based on expert opinion is not of the same level as that of the estimates based on comparative risk assessment methods; these estimates are therefore not formal WHO estimates, but nevertheless are the best ones currently available.